Carbon Footprint Facts

Your carbon footprint is the amount of CO2 and methane gas you release into the environment by consuming energy.

Using paper adds to your carbon footprint because it takes 15 units of energy to make paper from a plant.

It takes 5 units of energy for a plant to grow into a tree.

It takes 4 units of energy to chop down a tree and bring it to the papermill.

It takes 6 units of energy to make the paper in the papermill.

Meat products have larger carbon footprints per calorie than grain or vegetable products because
of the inefficient transformation of plant energy to animal energy.

Just eliminating half the meat from your diet can save up to 1,600 pounds of carbon per year.

Heating and cooling account for about 56% of the energy use in a U.S. home.

Refrigerators are the largest user of household appliance energy

Washing clothes on ‘cold’ reduces CO2 emissions by 1.2-14.9 pounds per load of laundry.

Three fewer minutes in the shower can save 715 pounds of carbon and 5,500 gallons of fresh water per year.

The average passenger car emits 0.85 pounds of CO2 per mile driven.

Automobile fuel economy can improve 7-23% by simply observing the speed limit.

Every 5 mph increase in vehicle speed over 60 mph is equivalent to paying an extra $0.32 per gallon (assuming $3.85 per gallon).

sources: Center for Sustainable Systems, http://www.mocomi.com, http://www.eHow.com